Google expanding its use of the Rust programming language, adding support for it in its Chromium web browser.
Rust has been gaining steam as a programming language, thank in large part to the memory features and security it provides. Rust has already begun making its way into the Linux kernel, and Google has seen benefits from its inclusion in Android. Similarly, even the NSA has been recommending the use of Rust, and other memory-safe languages.
Google is now adding Rust support to Chromium, hoping to benefit in the same way it has with Android, as the company outlines in a blog post.
Our goal in bringing Rust into Chromium is to provide a simpler (no IPC) and safer (less complex C++ overall, no memory safety bugs in a sandbox either) way to satisfy the rule of two, in order to speed up development (less code to write, less design docs, less security review) and improve the security (increasing the number of lines of code without memory safety bugs, decreasing the bug density of code) of Chrome. And we believe that we can use third-party Rust libraries to work toward this goal.
Google makes the point that Rust was originally developed specifically for web browser development, making it fitting to use it in Chromium.
Rust was developed by Mozilla specifically for use in writing a browser, so it’s very fitting that Chromium would finally begin to rely on this technology too. Thank you Mozilla for your huge contribution to the systems software industry. Rust has been an incredible proof that we should be able to expect a language to provide safety while also being performant.
Users interested in the technical details of how Google plans to integrate Rust can read more here.